What is Skills?
Skills™ is an innovative web-based system that provides five main tools for educators (including parents, teachers, and other professionals) of children with autism:
- The most comprehensive assessment of a child's skills ever created spanning across eight developmental areas, including social, motor, language, adaptive, play, executive functions, cognition, and academic skills
- Individualized and customizable treatment lesson plans with step-by-step instructions and videos provided to the user based on the answers to the assessment questions (each lesson also comes with supplemental materials such as worksheets, visual aids, tracking forms, and teaching guides that are printable)
- A tracking system that allows users to evaluate the child's progress during treatment
- The ability to use a multidisciplinary approach, allowing physicians and other professionals (speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, etc.) providing alternative treatments to the child to track the effects of their interventions on the child's learning of skills in the treatment plan over time
- A support community wherein users can ask questions and share ideas with a Skills™ expert.
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What is the difference between Skills Developing and Skills Living?
- Skills Developing is targeted for teaching developmental skills primarily in ages 0-18.
- Skills Living is targeted for teaching individual living skills to transitioning youth and adults.
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Who should use Skills?
Anyone who will be involved in the design and management of a child's treatment program - this might be behavior analysts or other professionals, teachers, and parents/caregivers. Skills™ was created to promote a multidisciplinary approach in that everyone on a child's treatment team is able to input data on what interventions they are implementing with the child and view them all at once. We highly recommended that at least one person on the child's treatment team is a board certified behavior analyst (BCBA) or equally qualified professional with a track record in designing ABA-based interventions for children with autism. The role of this individual is to design and direct the child's curriculum program within Skills™. For those who do not currently have a current ABA provider, Skills™ can provide a gateway to high quality supervision via the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD).
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Does Skills integrate with Practice Management Systems?
Yes, Skills integrates with many common Practice Management Systems. If you have specific questions about integrating with your PMS please email info@skillsglobal.com .
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Does Skills have a preferred practice management system integration?
While Skills does integrate with many Practice Management Systems the Calmanac Practice Management System has many features that makes integration with Skills easier and more effective. For more information you can view this demonstration. If you have additional questions please reach out info@skillsglobal.com.
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Why do I need Skills?
If you are a parent:
Skills™ offers all parents access to a comprehensive assessment, the CARD curriculum and a progress tracking system, no matter where you are located. Skills™ offers your child access to a our comprehensive curriculum, including lessons targeting higher level complex behavior, such as perspective taking (Theory of Mind) and executive functions. If you already have an ABA provider, Skills™ will save your ABA provider time and help them be more efficient. If you don‘t have an ABA provider, Skills™ is your gateway to accessing supervision by an expert in designing ABA-based intervention programs. Skills™ will also provide you with live support via web chats and 24/7 access to the online Skills™ Community Support Forum.
If you are a teacher or school:
- A Skills™ consultant provides in-person initial training / setup and follow-up to ensure that school staff are maximizing the potential that Skills™ has to offer.
- Skills™ provides access to the most comprehensive assessment and curriculum in the world for students with autism, as well as the ability to track progress both at the level of the student and the teacher.
- Teachers will enjoy the extra goodies that Skills™ provides, such as lesson plans, teaching guides, visual aids, worksheets, tracking forms, IEP goals and benchmarks, and access to online support.
- Teachers can keep track of each student‘s skill acquisition, both at the operant (exemplar) level and at the activity level. Teachers can also keep track of the effects of challenging behavior and alternative treatments on each student‘s progress.
- Teachers can track "known" skills (via the assessment) and newly mastered skills (via the treatment plan), and can visually examine each student‘s progress on a selection of different progress-tracking charts.
- Staff can obtain BCBA mentorship from BCBA clinical support staff. Additional fees apply.
- Administrators can view and compare the performance of students assigned to each teacher or contrast teachers‘ effectiveness in relation to one another.
If you are a professional:
Skills™ offers everything you need to efficiently and effectively design and manage a customized treatment program for every child. Our fully comprehensive assessment and curricula (including lessons targeting complex behavior, such as perspective-taking or (Theory of Mind) are combined with detailed data tracking capabilities and other features, to enable you to maximize treatment effectiveness and provide services to more children.
- The flexible, customizable (non-"cookie-cutter") approach to assessment and curriculum design within Skills™ allows professionals to more efficiently formulate and manage a fully individualized intervention plan for each child.
- The Skills™ Language curriculum takes a functional approach to teaching language skills based on B.F. Skinner‘s (1957) analysis of verbal behavior.
- Skills™ tracks both "known" skills (via the assessment) and newly mastered skills (via the treatment plan).
- Skills™ allows professionals to keep track of the effects or absence of effects of alternative treatments, life events and challenging behavior on a child‘s progress.
- CARD eLearning™ gives professionals an easy way to provide therapy staff with foundational training in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and ABA-based techniques for teaching children with autism and managing challenging behavior.
- Professionals can view and compare the performance of therapy staff taking CARD eLearning™ as well as contrast the progress of different children assigned to a particular therapist, or contrast therapist effectiveness in relation to other therapists.
- Skills™ will save the professional time and money:
- Access to a fully comprehensive assessment that assesses all areas of child development (social, motor, language, adaptive, play, cognition (perspective-taking), executive functions, and academic skills) – no need to administer a battery of different tests.
- All skills have assigned ages for when they emerge in typical development. Assessment questions are individualized according to chronological age so that each child is automatically presented only with lessons that are relevant to him / her - no need to spend time researching skill ages.
- Ability to select lessons quickly from a pool of individualized options directly tied to the child‘s particular assessment results.
- Access to a variety of valuable, printable materials, including customizable lesson plans and target lists, teaching guides, visual aids, worksheets and tracking forms.
- All lessons are linked to specific IEP goals and benchmarks – reduce time spent writing IEP goals by 30%!
- Visually examine each child‘s progress via a variety of immediately accessible progress tracking charts – no need to plot data.
- Unlimited access to online support.
If you are an organization:
Skills™ Analytics offers
- Prediction of probable clinical outcomes given specific parameters
- Best outcome for each child
- Acquisition rate correlated with hours of treatment
- Predicted time in treatment
- Team Evaluation
- Contrast performance of children within the same ABA provider
- Contrast ABA providers with one another
- Cost Analysis
- Predict costs based on child, provider, and treatment parameters
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Who developed Skills and what is your mission?
The creators of Skills™ originate from the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, Inc. (CARD) and include the founder of CARD, Dr. Doreen Granpeesheh, two of CARD’s Research and Development Managers, Dr. Adel Najdowski and Dr. Dennis Dixon, and a team of dedicated CARD clinicians with a wealth of experience and clinical expertise. Skills™ was founded with the goal of helping as many children and their families affected by autism as possible. It is our mission to aid the provision of affordable global access to the highest quality of ABA-based intervention in the world.
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What are the assessment and curricular components of Skills?
The assessment provides a series of “yes” / “no” questions organized by curricula and listed in chronological order of child development. Based on the answers to these questions, specific skills are identified that are in your child's repertoire versus those that need to be taught. There are eight areas of assessment and corresponding curricula: (1) Social, (2) Motor, (3) Language, (4) Adaptive, (5) Play, (6) Executive Functions, (7) Cognition, and (8) Academic. Each assessment area/curriculum is composed of curricular domains. For example, the motor assessment/curriculum focuses on three domains: gross motor, fine motor, and visual motor. Within each domain, there are lessons which teach specific concepts related to the domain. For example, within the gross motor domain, there are lessons that require large motor movements such as the Catching lesson and the Jumping lesson. Each lesson is assigned to a teaching level. There are 12 teaching levels going from easiest to most difficult. Within each lesson, there are lesson sections that focus on teaching specific concepts related to the lesson. For example, in the Catching lesson, one lesson section teaches the child to Catch a Rolled Ball and another teaches the child to Catch a Thrown Ball. Within each lesson section, there are activities that are provided to teach the concept of interest. For example, one activity within the section for Catching a Rolled Ball will teach the child to catch a rolled ball with his/her hands and another will teach the child to catch a rolled ball with a glove.
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What does Skills have to offer that other programs don't?
A variety of features distinguish Skills from other programs currently available
- The comprehensiveness of our assessment and curricula are unrivaled.
- Our assessment and curricula include a focus on higher level complex behavior, such as perspective taking (Theory of Mind), social language, and executive functions.
- Assessment questions are individualized according to chronological age so that each child is automatically presented only with questions and subsequently lessons that are relevant to him or her.
- All skills within the 8 curricula have assigned ages indicating when each skill emerges during the course of typical development.
- Assessment questions are directly linked to curricular targets for the first time ever.
- Unlimited support via the Skills online Community Forum and live support via a Skills Live Host.
- Detailed data tracking capabilities
- Analytics provides users with the ability to compare and contrast child, staff and provider performance, as well as allowing users to predict probable clinical outcomes and costs given specific child, provider and treatment parameters.
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Will I be able to access Skills from different computers?
Yes. All you need is internet access through a browser (e.g., Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox).
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Will Skills work on a MAC versus a PC?
What Android Devices does Skills Logbook Support?
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Software Specification: Android 7 or higher
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The Android OS must be 4.4.x (KitKat) and up or any version of Lollipop, Marshmallow, Nougat, Oreo, or Pie.
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Hardware Specification: A RAM of 2GB is recommended. Logbook can still run on a lower amount of RAM but can be slower at times especially if other apps are open in the background.
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Dimensions: Optimized for 7”- 10” (diagonal) tablets.
- No Compatibility with Amazon tablets (kind or fire), Windows Tablets, or Chromebook.
What iOS Devices does Skills Logbook Support?
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iPad or iPad mini with an iOS of 7 or higher. The compatibility is with the operating system, not the device so any Apple iPad or iPad mini that runs iOS 7 or higher will support the Logbook app.
Is Logbook compatible with smartphones?
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Logbook was not designed for use on smart phones.
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Has there been any research conducted on Skills or eLearning?
The Language portion of the Skills™ assessment has been found to have high test-retest and inter-rater reliability (Dixon, Tarbox, Najdowski, Wilke, & Granpeesheh, 2010). Research has also demonstrated that CARD eLearning can effectively increase a user's knowledge of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) principles and procedures (Granpeesheh, Tarbox, Dixon, Peters, Thompson, & Kenzer, 2010).
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How long will it be before I see results?
How fast can I expect my child to progress?
The length of time it will take to see results will depend on a number of variables, including (but not limited to): The consistency in behavioral contingencies, intensity of treatment, the complexity and appropriateness of the lessons, and their implementation. Some skills, if taught correctly, could be gained within a day or two, whereas others may take considerably longer.
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What age range does Skills target?
Can Skills help my adult son or daughter with ASD?
Skills™ currently encompasses eight developmental areas, up to the age of 8 years. However, this does not mean that a child above 8 years of age could not benefit from Skills™. Most individuals diagnosed with autism will have holes or missing skill sets in the different developmental areas. For example, a 12-year-old boy may have typical gross and fine motor skills for his age, but show significant delays in socialization and cognition.
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My child is high-functioning - will Skills still be useful?
Absolutely! The Skills™ program was designed to provide help with all areas of human functioning including higher-level skills such as executive functions, cognition (i.e., perspective taking and theory of mind related skills), and social skills.
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Can Skills be used for children with diagnoses other than autism?
Skills™ was based on the scientific principles of learning that apply to all populations, thus Skills™ can be used not only with children with autism but also with typical children and children with other diagnoses, including Asperger's syndrome, PDD, PDD-NOS, and other developmental disabilities and delays. Similarly, Skills™ can benefit children at different levels of functioning. By completing the assessment, relevant lessons will be provided as options in programming. For example, children with Asperger's Syndrome tend to only lack in the areas of Cognition, Social Skills, and Executive Functions, whereas children with more significant delays will most likely benefit from all of the curriculum areas.
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Is it possible to share my Skills account with anyone else?
Yes. All members of a child's team can have access.
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